Page 80 of Love, Always and Forever
He shivered, but she didn’t think it had anything to do with the cool night air. His hand tightened its grip on hers. “Then there were those people who died in the fire the other night. Even if we saved the little girl, one out of three isn’t good enough. Not by a long shot.”
He released her hand and turned away, his broad back forming a solid barrier between the two of them. “I don’t know if I can survive another failure to save someone in my care.”
It took her a second to follow the direction his thoughts had taken him.
“Are you talking about your job or the problem with my heart or both?”
She hated that he nodded even if she understood why he did. “I see.”
No way she was going to stay another second, not when her eyes were already burning from the need to cry, to mourn the loss of something precious that had died before it ever even had a chance to live.
“I’m going inside now.”
She made it as far as the back porch before he caught up with her. One second she was standing on solid ground and the next she was being crushed against Mikhail’s chest, her feet dangling in the air. Without thinking, she wrapped her legs around his hips and her arms around his neck, holding on for dear life.
His mouth found hers, his tongue shoving past her lips as if staking a claim on her soul.
She broke off the kiss and stared into his feral gaze. “What are you wanting here, Misha?”
“I want you…us, together one more time.” He brushed his lips across hers. “I want to strip us both down to the skin, and then I want to take you every way I can think of, hard and fast, slow and gentle.”
There was no way she would refuse him, but she had to know the answer to one last question. “Why?”
“To make sure you know that, regardless of how things play out between us, you do matter to me. More than I can find words to describe.”
A wiser woman might have said no, might have tried to protect herself from the pain that was sure to come. But she wasn’t strong enough to send him away, leaving them both alone and hurting.
Smiling through her tears, she whispered, “Take me to bed, Misha. Love me for tonight.”
